Over the past 30 years, I’m guessing I’ve played in, coached and watched well over 10,000 female hockey games.

And I believe the #1 thing that makes players of any age and level stand out from the rest is their POISE with the puck.

Having poise with the puck is all about gaining and maintaining possession while being patient and creative under pressure. These players understand when to keep the puck, when to pass it and when to shoot it. Their ability to make these types of decisions without panic under pressure can be attributed to both their fundamental skill base and their hockey IQ.

SKATING: A player with poise has a strong wide skating base and can use their edges effectively to drive skate to open ice, change direction instantly and use deception to shake off an opponent.

PUCK CONTROL: Poised players may have fancy dangles, but what they really excel at is dribbling the puck in any position around their body and being able to touch pucks into new space and recover them quickly. They’ve got the puck on a string and it seems impossible to get it off of them.

PHYSICALITY: Poised players are able to build a wall (puck-you-bad guy) in open ice, along the wall and in front of the net. Defenders can have perfect body position on them but with that strong wall in place, they have little chance of getting to the puck.

You’ll see a great example of all 3 of these skills at work in the simple 1v1 drill we ran at a recent TFH skills clinic:

Most importantly, the truly poised players are able to showcase their strong skating, puck control and physicality all at once with their HEAD UP. They are constantly scanning the ice, looking for open ice, lanes and players so that they can make 1 of 3 decisions on what to do next.

Decision #1 – SKATE IT: All players at all levels must be able to skate themselves out of trouble in all situations. No coach loves seeing turnovers in your zone from a player trying to do much but players must be encouraged to wheel pucks instead of playing “hot potato hockey”. When players throw it away under pressure, they are panic passing their problem off to someone else. All players must be able to solve the problem of pressure by staying poised.

Decision #2 – PASS IT: While we want players to be able to skate themselves out of trouble, we don’t want them to play with blinders on. They should have at least 1 or 2 good passing options at all times during 5v5 play and Do they pass it to an open teammate for a quick shot, make a short bank pass on the breakout or find a teammate exiting the zone behind the opponent for a breakaway pass?

Decision #3 – SHOOT IT: Everyone involved in the female game knows scoring is at a premium. And while we want players to be able to hang onto pucks a little longer and pass more to their open teammates, we also need to teach everyone to be a better shooter. Female players will often think pass first instead of shoot first which leads to a lot of missed scoring chances. While every player needs to be a better technical shooter, it’s the ability to decide which shot to take when that shows real poise and hockey IQ. For example, so many players in our game will be in 1v1 situation and try to get around the opponent for an open shot with the goalie. It might never occur to them that shooting through the screen and driving the net for the rebound creates two scoring chances on the same play (and is a lot harder for the goalie to save). Players across all levels need to develop better technical shooting skills, but the ability to shoot the right shot at the right time from the right spot is what makes you a goal scorer.

So when we look at POISE as a whole, we need to develop ALL of the Fundamental 5 skills in order for players to be able to gain, maintain and sustain possession of the puck:

1. Skating
2. Puck Control
3. Physicality
4. Passing
5. Shooting

Mix that with strong heads-up hockey IQ and you become pretty unstoppable out on the ice.

SUMMER CAMP REGISTRATION: We work on playing with POISE in all our camps and will continue to do so this summer. Registration for our Total Female Hockey Off-Season Day Camps & Evening Training will be opening up in early February and because you’re on our newsletter list, you’ll be the first to know about it. If you want to start planning your summer skates now, all of our camp dates can be found at: https://totalfemalehockey.com/camps/

Work Hard.
Dream BIG.
Be Poised.

~ Coach Kim
Director & Founder, Total Female Hockey